These quotations will for us serve two purposes. They give a fair picture of the free school movement, and they sum up the arguments for and against State education. No thoughtful person in this age can observe the apathy of thousands of people in regard to the education of their children without at times feeling that these people would appreciate schools much more if they had to make some personal sacrifice to secure their advantages. But further thought is almost certain to convince us that free schools are the natural support of a democratic government, and that without their socializing influence a self-governing people would always be more or less at the mercy of demagogues. CHAPTER VIII. _RYERSON AND SEPARATE SCHOOLS._ The purpose of this chapter is to set forth as briefly as possible the origin and development of Separate Schools in Upper Canada, showing incidentally the part taken in that development by Doctor Ryerson. If we seek to discover the primary cause of our Separate School system we undoubtedly find it in the almost unanimous desire of the pioneer settlers to have the Common Schools established upon a basis of Christianity, and to secure for their children some positive instruction in the Holy Scriptures. From their standpoint secular schools were of necessity godless schools. We need also to remember that sectarian prejudices were more bitter seventy years ago than they are to-day. Dogma and religion were thought to be inseparable. To-day the various bodies of Christians throughout the world make much of what they hold in common; seventy years ago their grandfathers could not forget the petty differences of doctrine that held them apart. If the schools were to give religious instruction, and if the adoption of some form of instruction acceptable to all was impossible, then separate schools were the logical outcome. And as separate schools for each one of the many sects into which the scattered population of Upper Canada was divided were clearly impossible it naturally followed that such schools were established for Roman Catholics who were comparatively few in number, and who differed in doctrine from Protestants more radically than the various Protestant bodies differed amongst themselves. No one of the Protestant bodies could object to the reading of the Protestant Bible in the schools, but the Roman Catholics naturally objected to their children taking any part in such an exercise.